She Dragon Syrax, Ridden solely by Rhaenyra Targaryen
She was a dragon named Syrax. Rhaenyra Targaryen was the only one who rode her. Someone in Valyria gave her name.
Syrax had yellow scales. She was huge and scary, but not as scary or skilled in fight as Caraxes. There were rings around her neck, and she was fed very well. Syrax hadn’t hunted for years during the civil war known as the Dance of the Dragons.
Syrax’s Key Events and Journey till the End
History
In the year 104 AD, when Rhaenyra was seven years old, Syrax took her first mount. Syrax was referred to as a “young” dragon at the time, and Rhaenyra gave her the name “Syrax” (after a Valyrian goddess), which highly suggests that Syrax had never been ridden before.
Between the reigns of Viserys I Targaryen and the present, Syrax laid “several” layers of eggs. The most recent clutch she made was made right before the Civil War. Rhaenyra’s stepdaughter, Rhaena Targaryen, was given one of the eggs from the most recent clutch.
There is some evidence that all of Rhaenyra’s sons’ dragons came from eggs laid by Syrax, but the only fact that can be proven is that Rhaena’s dragon Morning, finally hatched from one of Syrax’s eggs.
There was a time when Rhaenyra couldn’t fly on dragonback because of the tough stillbirth she had at the start of the war. When they attacked and took King’s Landing with little resistance, Rhaenyra and her other dragon riders could fly on Syrax.
It was inside the walls of the Red Keep in King’s Landing that Syrax was kept. She had her own stable in the outer ward that had been cleared of horses and made available to her. She was bound to the ground with strong chains. She could get from the stable to the yard with the help of the long chains, but they stopped her from flying off without a rider. The Greens’ Dreamfyre and the three other dragons that belonged to the blacks were kept in the Dragonpit.
After the Storming of the Dragonpit, Syrax was slain. Prince Joffrey Velaryon attempted to mount her so he could ride to the Dragonpit and free the other dragons from the mob. He also thought he might mount his own dragon Tyraxes, there.
Dragons, on the other hand, are not horses, and they will only take one rider at a time. Joffrey fell to his death when Syrax shrugged him off in the middle of the flight. Syrax flew to the Dragonpit because of the fighting there.
Syrax could have stayed high in the air and attacked the crowd with her flames, but instead, she came down to the ground and killed dozens of people with her teeth and claws. Many different stories disagree on how Syrax died, and Gyldayn doesn’t go into them all in depth. What is certain is that Syrax died in the fight with the attackers.
Byron Swann’s attempt to kill a dragon
Ser Byron Swann and his squire set out to kill Syrax a few months before the Storming of the Dragonpit, around the same time as the Butcher’s Ball. He tried to kill the dragon by sneaking up on it while hiding behind his silver shield. This was meant to make the dragon only see its own image, just like Serwyn of the Mirror Shield is said to have done to the dragon Urrax.
However, Grand Maester Munkun stated in his book The Dance of the Dragons, A True Telling that Ser Byron attempted to murder Prince Aemond Targaryen’s Vhagar to stop the prince’s raids across the Riverlands. Still, this is not likely because House Swann backed King Aegon II Targaryen, the prince’s brother, and the greens. Munkun got most of his information from Grand Maester Orwyle, who was locked up at the time.
Another historian, Septon Eustace, claimed that the knight tried to kill Sunfyre, the dragon of King Aegon II. However, this is clearly incorrect because Sunfyre’s whereabouts were unknown then. But in his Testimony, the court fool Mushroom, who was with Queen Rhaenyra, says that Byron had attempted to kill Syrax.
Finally, either his or Ser Byron’s daughter was written a letter about the knight’s death. It said that Byron had fought Syrax. All reports agree that when the knight came closer, the dragon woke up and let out its fire, which burned through the mirror shield and cooked Ser Byron Swann.
